No relief for Police in 2013 Budget

Today’s Budget confirms funding for Police
remains frozen, which means Police will face continued
pressure to make savings to meet rising costs for the
foreseeable future, Police Association Vice-President Stuart
Mills said today.

“Police have had to make considerable
internal savings to make ends meet for each of the last two
years, including reducing non-sworn support staff.
Today’s Budget unfortunately provides no relief. Police
will be forced to continue making cuts to meet
inflation-related cost pressures,” Mr Mills said.

Big
drops in recorded crime over recent years are a direct
result of investment in police resources in the last half of
the last decade, but those gains are fragile, Mr Mills
said.

“Police resources were significantly boosted over
the five years through to about 2010. This meant police
could act proactively, and preventively, instead of being
constantly short-staffed and able to do little more than
rush from one emergency call to the next.

“We are now in
an environment where budgets have been frozen for several
years, while cost pressures keep mounting. To make ends
meet, we are seeing widespread restructuring, and the loss
of non-sworn support staff positions. These translate to
added pressure on the frontline.

“We have yet to see
that pressure show in the crime statistics. However,
experience shows that, sooner or later, ‘business as
usual’ policing will suffer, and lead to the sorts of
crises we saw in the late 1990s and early 2000s – such as
the Comms Centres crisis, ‘P’ epidemic, and
un-investigated child abuse files,” Mr Mills
said.

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